Major publishers call on the US government to ‘Stop AI Theft’

Hundreds of publishers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Verge parent company Vox Media, are running an ad campaign this week urging the government to protect content from AI. The campaign, called Support Responsible AI, is run by the News/Media Alliance trade association and consists of several ads that will appear in print and online.

Each ad has phrases like, “Keep Watch On AI,” “Stop AI Theft,” and “AI Steals From You Too,” while the text on the bottom reads: “Stealing is un-American. Tell Washington to make Big Tech pay for the content it takes.” The campaign comes just weeks after OpenAI and Google wrote letters to the government, urging it to allow their AI models to train on copyrighted content.

The ad also contains a link and a QR code that leads to the Support Responsible AI page, where it prompts users to contact their local representatives about requiring Big Tech companies to fairly compensate writers, artists, and journalists for their work. It calls for the government to mandate attribution in AI-generated content as well.

“Right now, Big Tech and AI companies are using publishers’ own content against them, taking it without authorization or compensation to power AI products that pull advertising and subscription revenue away from the original creators of that content,” Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance, said in the press release. “The news media industry is not anti-AI – many companies and creators use AI tools in their work. Rather, we seek a balanced ecosystem where AI is built responsibly.”

In February, major UK newspapers ran a similar campaign. Many plastered their covers with the phrase “MAKE IT FAIR” as part of an initiative that asked readers to help protect AI from training on copyrighted content. Some other publishers participating in the Support Responsible AI campaign include The Atlantic, Seattle Times, Tampa Bay Times, Wired publisher Condé Nast, and Politico owner Axel Springer.